Author Topic: Science Fiction / Fantasy (Read 385133 times)

PatH · « **Reply #1920 on:** July 07, 2013, 08:14:53 PM »

Science Fiction / Fantasy

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Welcome to the whole universe! This is where we gather to share our experiences in science fiction and fantasy. We like everything, from Gregory Benford to Stephanie Meyer—hard science to magic and fantasy.

Come in, sit down with us, and tell us what you are reading or have read, what you like or dislike.

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Discussion Leader: PatH

Frybabe · « **Reply #1921 on:** July 08, 2013, 08:07:35 AM »

I'm at chapter 15 in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. They have had their revolution, and written and approved their Declaration of Independence from Earth and are about to send someone to deliver it in person. The parody (correct word?) of the political process and writing/signing of the declaration had me chuckling. Has this book been done in a book discussion? Might be fun as well as thought provoking.

PatH, BBC and BBC America are doing Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell as a mini-series set to be shown in 2014 according to BBC and NYT. Casting is not yet set.

Steph · « **Reply #1922 on:** July 08, 2013, 08:44:23 AM »

yes, most science fiction authors who write series, also tend to do short stories to fill in the holes.. They are fun, but only for people who read he series..If you dont, they make no sense.

Frybabe · « **Reply #1923 on:** July 10, 2013, 02:10:12 PM »

Finished The Moon is a Harsh Witness. It really impressed me. Not hard to read at all. I was a little disappointed to get to the end. Speaking of the end, I have some theories about "Mike" and his demise, but it then brings up the question of how he came into assistance in the first place. Mike got the ball rolling and then, when everything was accomplished, he disappeared. Seems mighty suspicious to me.

Steph · « **Reply #1924 on:** July 11, 2013, 08:51:51 AM »

Characters in Heinlins books often pop up in other books of his..

PatH · « **Reply #1925 on:** July 11, 2013, 09:15:33 AM »

I haven't read the followup book, but I gather that is true of Mike.

PatH · « **Reply #1926 on:** July 11, 2013, 10:27:44 PM »

Well, I finished the Jules Verne in plenty of time for tonight's f2f discussion, but I wasn't quite half through the thousand pages of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

I enjoyed the Verne, but you have to put up with a lot of lists of fishes and the like (as an ex-zoology major, I can stand that), and he takes a long time to get anywhere with his stately prose. The plot is slight, but the whole thing has its charms.

The prose of Jonathan Strange is even more stately and elaborate. It is about two magicians (partly collaborators, partly rivals) in the early 1800s trying to bring the practice of real magic back to England, and also to use it as a weapon to help defeat Napoleon. The language is appropriate to the time, and is part of the fun of the book, as she goes off into long footnotes about the provenance of books of magic, the history of minor characters who appear once for a few minutes, etc. In fact, the footnotes are a big part of the fun, and some continue for several pages. I was enjoying immersing myself in this leisurely story (even when we're at the front of Wellington's Peninsular Campaign, events sort of float by) but after 425 pages I still had no idea where the story was going to go. Now I know more, but still not as much as you'd think after listening to people talk about it for an hour. I'll probably finish it even though the heat's off. But you really have to immerse yourself in the mood, kind of slowly sink down into it and stay there.

Next month the sci-fi is by Iain Banks, an author I've been meaning to try, and the fantasy is one I voted against in the recent poll for future discussions. Wool is on the future list too, which means I won't forget my desire to read it.

Steph · « **Reply #1927 on:** July 12, 2013, 08:49:52 AM »

I love science fiction so much, but dont think i would like a f2f discussion. I know that many of the authors leave me cold and I truly do not like the constant battle ones except for Miles of course. No idea why I like him so much, but he appeals to me.

PatH · « **Reply #1928 on:** July 13, 2013, 07:19:48 PM »

Since we know in advance what the books are, I can always opt out if it's not to my taste. I'm definitely going to do that with the August fantasy selection--Cavern of Black Ice by J. V. Jones. The website Fantastic Fiction says: "What lifts this far above routine quest fantasy is Jones' deft characterisation, relentless intensity and unsparing depiction of pain and slow-healing injury. She has a flair for memorably horrid images." They then quote an image I won't repeat here, in case anyone has just eaten, is eating, or hopes to eat in the next few hours.

So much for J. V. Jones. The sci-fi selection is Excession by Iain M. Banks, in memoriam of his recent demise. I've never read him, but welcome this chance to try him. If I get through the book, I'll go, if I don't like it, I won't.

The discussions are back-to back: fantasy at 6:30, sci-fi at 7:30, and many people come for one but not both. Mostly, there is a small crowd for fantasy, and more come in for sci-fi but the fantasy people stay. I was timid about joining this group, but feel very comfortable in it. I'm the oldest by 10 or 20 years, but feel totally accepted. There are young professionals of both sexes, more women than men, all of them very knowledgeable, people in their 40s or 50s, and a few 50+ like me.

I like being pushed to try things I otherwise wouldn't have gotten around to. Sometimes they are a bust, sometimes a good find. And I get a lot of back and forth conversation, something that's hard to find on this subject except here.

Steph · « **Reply #1929 on:** July 14, 2013, 10:41:45 AM »

Sounds like something I would love. Our local f2f bookclub is awful.. The leader gets to pick all the books, assign them like homework and you are expected to google the author and provide handouts of their life and works.. Went twice, gave it up.. not my thing.

Frybabe · « **Reply #1930 on:** July 19, 2013, 07:41:24 AM »

The Wikipedia article about Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet states that in an interview (not cited) that it was inspired by Xenophon's Anabasis. Interesting.

Just finished Someone to Remember Me by Brendan Mancilla. This is also supposed to be a first book, self-published. It's an odd book, that reads almost like some kind of treasure hunt type of game. The small group that it follows wake up in a "dead" city without any memories of who they are or how they got there. As they wonder about, they discover clues pointing them to the answers plus learn what they must do to "redeem" themselves and move forward. It is simply written and light reading and not "in depth", but it touches on issues involving guilt over previous mistakes, morally bankrupt society, righting past wrongs, and whether clones are truly "real" and possess a soul. I'm not quite satisfied with the ending unless the story continues with a sequel. I want to know what happens next.

I am now reading one called The Last Praetorian by an author named Mike Smith. It also appears to be a first novel. Although the story is interesting enough I have a lot of issues with spelling, overused, and misused words. Since this is a first of series, I hope the author finds an editor who can clean up the mess. The author also tried to tie the book in with Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet series by mentioning Senator Rione as the mother of a young officer who briefly crosses the main character's path. I wonder if this young officer will show up later in the series. Character development is spotty and the back and forth in time transitions are not as smooth as they could be. I guess this comes under the heading of space opera.

While I have gotten used to the long time problem of writers using a for an, the latest glaring misuse of a word is I where me should be used. It is showing up frighteningly frequently in the works of young writers. So, my question is, have they changed grammar rules, are they not being taught well, or is it just that with the self publishing aspect of the ebook world encourages youngsters to write who paid little or no attention to English grammar in school and who don't know how to or don't have someone knowledgeable to proofread/edit their works?

Steph · « **Reply #1931 on:** July 19, 2013, 08:27:18 AM »

I suspect that grammar rules are being ignored. I know that neither of my grandchildren learned to diagram sentences.. A lot of theproblem is the texting of course.

Frybabe · « **Reply #1932 on:** July 19, 2013, 08:56:20 AM »

I hated diagramming. Never got the "hang" of it. Nevertheless, I've always been able to put a good sentence together. One thing I learned about about 28 years ago (give or take) was that I had a nasty habit of making my sentences extra long (still guilty sometimes) and ended up with a lot of "garden path" phrases. I learned that shorter sentences, at least these days, are better. The reader doesn't lose the writer's train of thought. I also learned to write much more "actively" rather than passively.

One thing I do a lot more now compared to my younger days is use the word "I" a lot more often. When I was young I thought that using "I" sounded conceited and drew attention to me more than I cared. A lack of self-confidence?

PatH · « **Reply #1933 on:** July 19, 2013, 04:59:54 PM »

Quote from: Frybabe on July 19, 2013, 08:56:20 AM

One thing I do a lot more now compared to my younger days is use the word "I" a lot more often. When I was young I thought that using "I" sounded conceited and drew attention to me more than I cared. A lack of self-confidence?

Not necessarily lack of self-confidence, Frybabe. I remember being taught that it was stylistically bad, even egotistical, to use a lot of "I"s. I find myself using it more and more too. But what else are you going to do when you are talking about your opinions or reactions to things, which we do a lot of here. Look! Two sentences in a row beginning with "I". The other thing I do a lot is use hugely parenthetical sentences. Semicolons, dashes, and parentheses abound.

Ten years ago I took a beginning Spanish class at the local community college. Most of the class was fresh out of high school, and it was obvious that most of them had no notion of grammar whatever. It's hard to learn verb conjugations if you almost don't know what a verb is.

Frybabe · « **Reply #1934 on:** July 19, 2013, 09:55:21 PM »

I agree Pat, not only was using I often frowned upon, but we were supposed to write our research reports in a passive voice. I don't remember why, but I think it had something to do with staying neutral or avoiding personal interjections. When I got to college, my English Comp teacher had a fit. He told me my writing was like reading a text book. Flat, no emotion, no passion. He had us writing essays about personal experiences, or things we were interested in, passionate about. He ignored punctuation and spelling errors to an extent trying to get the students to write descriptive passages with emotion/passion, vibrant. Proper grammar would come later said he, but first you must learn not be afraid to write. The department head was not well pleased with him, he only lasted there a few years. I thought he was great.

Steph · « **Reply #1935 on:** July 20, 2013, 08:46:14 AM »

Sounds like a good teacher. My granddaughter seemed to do really well in art in elementary school.Then she had an art teacher and was roundly scolded for imaginary stuff and told to paint to order. Now she wont even try to paint. Horrid teacher

PatH · « **Reply #1936 on:** July 22, 2013, 09:29:57 AM »

Quote from: Frybabe on July 19, 2013, 07:41:24 AM

The Wikipedia article about Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet states that in an interview (not cited) that it was inspired by Xenophon's Anabasis. Interesting.

Thanks for pointing that out, Frybabe. It sure makes sense. I suspect there's more of that sort of inspiration than we realize. Isaac Asimov based his Foundation and Empire series on the Roman Empire. And the last Blanko quiz reminded me that I have assumed that in Lee and Miller's Liaden books, the feat of mathematician Aillianna Caylon (Val Con's mother) in revising the Ven'tura tables to make space travel safer was based on Nathaniel Bowditch, who did the same thing for sea travel about 1800. His tables are still used.

Frybabe · « **Reply #1937 on:** July 22, 2013, 09:58:43 AM »

I'm going to have to look up Bowditch. never heard of him until he showed up on the quiz.

Frybabe · « **Reply #1938 on:** July 22, 2013, 11:11:07 AM »

Well, I just found out something interesting. Remember I was complaining about the atrocious spelling/grammar in The Last Praetorian ? Well! I nosed around the net to find out a little more about the author and ran across a WordPress dialog where the author says these were corrected long ago, so the people must have downloaded prior to his corrections. Not only that, apparently his is not from the US. Going over to the Amazon forums, I found out that if an author wants to update his work he must submit it to Amazon with a list of corrections. Amazon then decides whether it is worth the effort to update what is already online. Then, there should be something in the Manage Your Kindle section that allows you to get the update once Amazon approves it. I downloaded my version in mid-April. I don't think that was so long ago and I don't see any way to update it. It is entirely possible, that his updated version is okayed for the UK site, but not the US. I still think these people need to have their works edited and proofed better before they submit their works.

The story itself is more of a romance set in space surroundings. It is good enough for me to want to read the next book which I understand has far fewer errors. It is not a freebie so it will have to wait a while.

PatH · « **Reply #1939 on:** July 22, 2013, 11:20:04 AM »

That is interesting. Seems to me, Amazon owes it to their writers to be willing to correct mistakes in a somewhat better way than that.

Steph · « **Reply #1940 on:** July 23, 2013, 08:44:00 AM »

Reading an older Patricia Briggs. She now writes about werewolves, etc, but she originally wrote science fantasy on mostly magic and dragons.. This is quite good..

PatH · « **Reply #1941 on:** August 02, 2013, 07:24:08 PM »

Someone on this site recommended Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw to me. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but I recently read another of hers, Farthing. It's very relevant to the part of history we are discussing in Those Angry Days, events leading up to WWII and how people picked their loyalties. Here's what I said in that discussion:

I recently read another alternative history book relevant to this bit of history: Jo Walton's Farthing. It starts out as a standard British country house murder mystery, but taking place in an alternative world in which Churchill was ousted in 1941, and England negotiated peace with Hitler. Germany now controls the rest of Europe, and anti-semitism is rampant.

At first you wonder, why the alternative universe, but it soon becomes only too clear. The mystery is solved, but the problems of some of the characters will have to be settled in the sequels. Evidently in the sequels it's made clear that the US failure to aid Britain was crucial, and also Lindbergh has become president of the US. The two sequels seem to be both mysteries and "try to save the world" fantasies.

Steph · « **Reply #1942 on:** August 03, 2013, 08:21:29 AM »

Currently reading a very old Pratchett. Not disc world and very very confusing. A Planet is also a bank?? Weird.

PatH · « **Reply #1943 on:** August 03, 2013, 09:09:00 AM »

What's its name?

Steph · « **Reply #1944 on:** August 04, 2013, 09:51:02 AM »

The Dark
Side of the Sun copyright.. 1976. As much as I love him, this one was too scattered to follow the plot.

Frybabe · « **Reply #1945 on:** August 20, 2013, 06:37:24 PM »

I just discovered that there are plans afoot to make John Scalzi's Old Man's War into a movie. It is classified as in development, so who knows if and when we will see it.

Steph · « **Reply #1946 on:** August 21, 2013, 08:53:46 AM »

Hollywood has real problems with science fantasy.. They tend to change it to suit the stars and ruin the whole thing.

PatH · « **Reply #1947 on:** August 21, 2013, 10:24:44 AM »

Too true, Steph. It will be interesting to see what they do with all the profanity and bloodshed the book is full of, and the many different shapes of aliens.

Steph · « **Reply #1948 on:** August 22, 2013, 08:41:34 AM »

Actually I would assume they can miracles with the computer nowadays, but can they bring out the humanity in all of them. That is my argument about much of Star Wars

Frybabe · « **Reply #1949 on:** August 22, 2013, 12:22:16 PM »

I've started John Scalzi's The Human Division , his latest novel which is set in the Old Man's War universe. It appears to be in a time period somewhat later. It is supposed to be thirteen "episodes" that are separate stories but somehow all tie into each other. This first episode seems to include less humorous than I have come to expect from him.

UKLA13 · « **Reply #1950 on:** August 22, 2013, 07:55:28 PM »

Hello

I'm a Sci/Fi and fantasy lover my favorite author is L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Frybabe · « **Reply #1951 on:** August 22, 2013, 09:23:47 PM »

Sorry to say I am not familiar with L.E. Modesitt Jr, Taking a look at the FF site, I see that he has been writing for quite some time. Most of his book look like they are more to the fantasy side which is not my usual haunts. I like space opera, military and colonization in space. Not big on space horror, or horror anything for that matter.

PatH · « **Reply #1952 on:** August 23, 2013, 06:58:00 AM »

Welcome, UKLA13. I'm not familiar with Modesitt either. What's he like? I like a lot of different flavors of sci-fi/fantasy.

We'll enjoy talking with you here, though once Latin classes start you might not have much time.

Are you familiar with the Fantastic Fiction website? There's a link in the header on this page. It's a great way to get a list of all the books an author has written, and the order of books in a series.

Steph · « **Reply #1953 on:** August 23, 2013, 08:50:28 AM »

I have read some Modesitt.. I love fantasy and read a lot of it.

marjifay · « **Reply #1954 on:** September 04, 2013, 06:11:14 AM »

The 2013 Hugo Awards have just been announced:

Best Novel
•Winner: Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi (Tor)
• 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
• Blackout by Mira Grant (Orbit)
• Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
• Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi (Tor)
• Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed (DAW)

Best Novella
•Winner: The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications)
• After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress (Tachyon Publications)
• On a Red Station, Drifting by Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
• San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats by Mira Grant (Orbit)
•“The Stars Do Not Lie” by Jay Lake (Asimov's, Oct-Nov 2012)

Best Novelette
•Winner: “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi” by Pat Cadigan (Edge of Infinity, Solaris)
•“The Boy Who Cast No Shadow” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Postscripts: Unfit For Eden, PS Publications)
•“Fade To White” by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld, August 2012)
•“In Sea-Salt Tears” by Seanan McGuire (Self-published)
•“Rat-Catcher” by Seanan McGuire (A Fantasy Medley 2, Subterranean)

Best Short Story
•Winner: “Mono no Aware” by Ken Liu (The Future is Japanese, VIZ Media LLC)
•“Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld, June 2012)
•“Mantis Wives” by Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld, August 2012)

Frybabe · « **Reply #1955 on:** September 04, 2013, 08:53:43 AM »

I am pleased that John Scalzi was honored as the winner of the Hugo for best novel. While I don't really consider Redshirts a great novel, it sure was funny. I enjoyed every second reading it.

I finished his Human Division last week. It is about the diplomatic corp and its attempts to open up trade with other alien societies. Their attempts at negotiating are being sabotaged by an unknown group that manage to keep themselves very well hidden.

PatH · « **Reply #1956 on:** September 04, 2013, 09:05:37 AM »

I'm not doing too well here; have only read one--Redshirts. It's very good--deserved to win. I read a different book (Palimpsest) by Catherynne Valente, and am not much interested in reading more. Palimpsest had fantastic descriptions that didn't work for me, and some of the most joyless sex scenes I've ever read. If I hadn't been reading it for a book club, I never would have finished it.

I have The Human Division from the library, but it will have to wait its turn.

marcie · « **Reply #1957 on:** September 04, 2013, 08:16:26 PM »

Gosh, I haven't kept up with science fiction authors. I haven't heard of most of them.

PatH · « **Reply #1958 on:** September 07, 2013, 09:38:40 PM »

I'm grateful to my f2f sci fi/fantasy book club for keeping me more up to date than I otherwise would be.

I read another of Kim Stanley Robinson's books--Red Mars. I liked the hard sci-fi science aspect of it, but the politics were sort of dreary, so am not tempted to go on. Throne of the Crescent Moon was one of the fantasy selections, but I didn't think it was my kind of thing, so didn't read it.

Pat Cadigan has been around for some time, I've read some of her stuff, but I don't know what she's been up to lately.

So, Scalzi, Robinson, Bujold, Ahmed (sort of), Cadigan, Valente, and that's it. I'd better check out some of the others.

Steph · « **Reply #1959 on:** September 08, 2013, 09:57:07 AM »

I just had fun. Found Patricia Briggs very first novel. It really shows her development of shape changing..

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Author Topic: Science Fiction / Fantasy (Read 385133 times)